Cat Worlds of Beirut

Abstract

Several hundreds of stray cats live in the district of Ras Beirut. These cats are neglected by official institutions or entities like the government, local municipality, or NGOs. Instead, the cats are taken care of through voluntary and dispersed acts of feeding undertaken by a variety of urban residents.

My thesis studies the relationship between the cat-feeder and stray cats in Ras Beirut by drawing on ethnographic data from participant observation and unstructured interviews with several cat-feeders. I accompanied and helped the cat-feeders with their daily feeding activities along their respective routes through the city. Consequently, I became acquainted with a new version of the city of Beirut, one in which humans and animals interact daily.

The cat-feeders engage in daily feeding activities for the cats around their neighborhoods and on their feeding trails. This becomes an intrinsic part of their routine and requires exerted work and determination. As I spent more time with them, I realized that although the cat-feeders care for the cats, this is not always a pleasant or joyful experience. My thesis studies cat-feeding through a framework of “care” that considers the labor involved in entering and sustaining relationships.

Despite the arduous nature of this labor of care, the cat-feeders are persistent and determined to fulfill their daily feeding activities. Where did this sense of responsibility or obligation to the cats come from? The cat-feeders are attentive to their surroundings, and their cat-feeding emerges because of this attentiveness. By studying the way in which the cat-feeders are drawn to the stray cats and how they explain or justify their caring activities, I explore the bonds of obligation and reciprocity with which they are tied to the cats.

Lastly, my thesis examines the manifold ways in which cat-caring and feeding practices interact with space in the city. Cat-feeders are often confronted by other urban residents or landlords about the “smell” or disturbances that their cat-feeding activities pose. I observed how cat-feeders negotiate these conflicts to enable themselves to feed cats through relations of “akhidh w ʿaṭa” or “give-and-take.” This reveals a connection between relationality and the way in which we occupy, use, or share urban space.

The cat-feeders are active participants in the creation of a particular urban fabric. They forge their own paths through the city and build feeding stations and shelters in spaces that are convenient to them. Their propensity to feed cats emerges from their desire and need to care for these nonhuman creatures with whom they share the city. This desire is not an abstract idea or an imagination. The cat-feeders’ imaginations become real and concrete in their daily practices of care. Consequently, they participate in the production of an alternative version of the city.